With wind speeds hovering around 75 mph Katia is now a category 1 hurricane on the Safir-Simpson Scale.It is expected to continue strengthening over the next two days and could reach category 3 by the weekend, according to the National Weather Service's National Hurricane Center.
However the storm is still too far out in the Atlantic for forecasters at the NHC to tell what if any impact it will have on the coastal U.S.
The NHC 3-day and 5-day tracks still predict Katia moving west-northwest at about 20 mph and making a slightly more northward turn beginning Saturday, with most longer-range predictions still sending Katia northward between Bermuda and the U.S. mainland.
NWS forecasters note that Katia has only a fragementary eye wall at this point, which may be from an area of dry air in the vicinity of the storm that was noted yesterday. They also say the storm is sitting on the southern side of a "deep-layer ridge" over the Atlantic Ocean formed by two mid- to upper-level low pressure troughs. It is too early to tell whether this will affect Katia's path and intensity.
Current satellite imagery of the storm is available from The Weather Channel.
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